What was so funny that it prompted Comedy Central to give Dave
Chappelle a $50 million dollar contract? The answer can be summed up in
four words. “I’m Rick James’ bitch!!!!!!” It was this catch phrase from
the segment “Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories” that launched the
already successful “Chappelle’s Show” into the pop culture
stratosphere. Basketball players would yell this catch-phrase behind
their teammates doing national TV interviews during warm-ups. The guys
from System of a Down were guests on the nationally syndicated radio
show Loveline and couldn’t stop saying it during the show. Chappelle
had officially kicked Chris Rock out the top spot when discussions of
“funniest man in the world” came up in casual conversation and he had
Charlie Murphy to thank for it.

Beating out his own Season 1 DVD and the “Family Guy” series,
“Chappelle’s Show” Season 2 has become the highest-selling television
show DVD of all time and for good reason. Not only are there a nice
amount of immature fart and poop jokes in Chappelle’s humor, but he
also has a great talent for doing some social commentary on topics like
the dangers of drug abuse and racism in a way that is funny and
educational but not preachy. In one particularly funny skit, Chappelle
enlists the talents of Snoop Dogg and a bunch of Muppetlike puppets to
teach kids about the dangers of STDs. Chappelle and his writers dreamed
up some really gross-looking puppets for syphilis, herpes and
gonorrhea. The result is like watching “Sesame Street” while on acid;
it’s funny and disgusting yet ultimately very educational.

Although Dave Chappelle is not a truly great impressionist, the few
impressions of famous people on season two of his show are pretty darn
accurate. One of the best skits ever is his spoof of Samuel Adams beer
in the commercial for Samuel L. Jackson beer. He delivers the lines in
this commercial dressed like a Civil War general but wearing the jheri
curls that in “Pulp Fiction.” At one point in the skit, one of the
patrons in the restaurant who is ordering the beer asks Chappelle as
Jackson to stop yelling, to which Jackson replies loudly; “This is how
I talk! Haven’t you seen any of my movies!!???”

On a classic episode of Charlie Murphy’s True Hollywood Stories,
Charlie tells the tale of how Prince, yes, the five-foot-two purple
king of ‘80s pop music, challenged Charlie, Eddie and his pals at a
club to a game of street basketball. In the sketch, Chappelle plays the
part of Prince and when it’s time to hit the courts, Charlie and the
gang have changed into their gym clothes but Prince’s team is still
sporting the same frilly duds they were wearing in the nightclub.
Charlie dishes out the line, “Okay, I guess it’s shirts vs. blouses,”
thinking this is going to be a walk in the park looking at Prince’s
motley gang of gender benders. Little does Charlie know that Prince has
some serious game. As Prince leaps into the air for a final reverse
tomahawk slam-dunk, he hangs on the rim and looks into the camera with
that famous Prince stare and says, “Game … blouses.” As a sign of
goodwill, Prince then invites the crew inside his home to make them
pancakes, asking in a low sexy voice, “Do you want some pancakes,
Charlie Murphy?” Charlie swears it’s all true and, when you think about
it, who could ever make something like that up? It has to be one of the
funniest skits ever done on any comedy show.

Even if you have seen all of the episodes of “Chappelle’s Show” Season
2, don’t feel like you don’t owe it to yourself to see this disc. The
commentary by Chappelle and series co-creator and writer Neil Brennan
is quite amusing, as are the over 30 minutes of outtakes and additional
stand-up comedy. You get to see how loose things are on the set as
Chappelle sets up the little segments before each skit. One
particularly funny outtake involves Chappelle trying to figure out
which hat he is going to wear for one shot. He improvs and has the
crowd in stitches as he argues, in a lighthearted way, with the show’s
director and wardrobe person. Some people can do anything and make it
funny and Chappelle is one of them.

The only problem with the roaring success of Season 2 of the show is
that it has put an extreme amount of pressure on Chappelle to come up
with funny material for Season 3. His show was slated to air on Comedy
Central this spring, but reportedly the pressure to come through with
another laugh-packed season drove Chappelle into hiding. Was he really
in Africa in a mental institution, or was he just setting us all up for
what is to be a super funny skit when Season 3 finally hits the air,
hopefully some time this season? I can’t wait to find out but, in the
meantime, I get to relive all of last season with this amazingly funny
DVD set.